Published April 15, 2016
What difference does student voice make in school design? Denver’s 2012 bond and mill levy gave one Southmoor Elementary student the chance to be heard in a too-noisy school.
After five years at Southmoor Elementary, fourth-grade student Dean Trujillo had a lot of ideas about making his school a better place to learn. But it wasn’t until he was part of the school’s design advisory committee, with Southmoor parent Sarah Onley and his fourth-grade teacher Kristen Neumann, that he felt his ideas would be heard.
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Published April 14, 2016
Bills or Boy Scouts? How one school reduced parents’ tough choices, with help from Denver voters.
Liz Graham works hard to give her son, Andy, as many educational opportunities as possible. But without extra money for extracurriculars, she faced some impossible choices.
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Published April 13, 2016
When should chemistry be less challenging? A South High School senior explains how bond funding saved science.
For South High School senior Sarah Nichols, conducting chemistry experiments was hard … but not for the right reasons.
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Published April 12, 2016
How can school space impact a community? A Slavens parent and daughter discuss how an expanded school saved tight-knit relationships.
Annie Humphrey moved her family to Denver’s Wellshire neighborhood to enroll her kindergartner Kate in a K-8 learning community seven years ago. For a while, Slavens K-8 School was perfect – until it started to run out of space.
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Published April 11, 2016
Perhaps more than anyone else, moms need some space. Thanks to 2012 bond funds, pregnant and parenting teens have the room they need to learn.
Florence Crittenton High School welcomes pregnant and and parenting teens, like seniors Jade-Marie Burgess and Naira Gonzalez, who are working to complete their high-school education. Until recently, however, teachers and students thought their learning environment felt like anything but a school.
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Published April 10, 2016
“If you build it, they will come.” A high-performing school gets more room to meet high demand.
Former PTA president and Brown International Academy parent Nicole Kazenske worked hard helping make her neighborhood school the choice for parents in northwest Denver. But she never guessed the success could hamper student learning.
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Published April 7, 2016
What difference does community voice make? A grandmother talks about how neighbors and Denver voters reopened Byers to students.
Merce Lea planned on sending her grandkids to her neighborhood school. The only problem was, her neighborhood school was Byers Middle School, which had been vacant for a decade.
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Published April 7, 2016
Really: the library does need to be quiet. Eagleton Elementary’s librarian explains how permanent walls and kid-friendly spaces helped to engage students in reading.
To engage young readers, Eagleton Elementary’s Phoebe Sacks works hard to create a sense of serenity in the library. But the school’s thin walls made it hard for students to focus on stories or studying.
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Published April 6, 2016
How do classroom walls shape learning? Two fourth-graders from Kaiser Elementary speak up about improvements at their school, thanks to Denver voters.
Kaiser Elementary fourth-graders Alexis Lynch and Dominique Valdez have been close friends since first grade. But the way their school was built sometimes made them feel a little too close to the kids in other classes.
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Published April 5, 2016
How can building a classroom build a team? A Lowry ECE teacher explains how construction and collaboration helped her improve student learning.
Lowry Elementary Early Childhood Education (ECE) Teacher Diana Gaiter is passionate about working with preschoolers. But after four years as the only ECE teacher in the school, she needed a little more adult conversation.
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